Robert Ramnarine, Charged With Insider Trading, Allegedly Searched Web To See If He Could Get Away With It: SEC

First rule of insider trading: don't research how to do it from your work computer.*

In a complaint filed Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Robert Ramnarine, a pharmaceutical executive, with insider trading -- in the process offering a look at how Ramnarine allegedly went about it. (Hat tip to Business Insider.)

The SEC complaint accuses Ramnarine of trading shares in companies that his employer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, was looking at buying. When one company gets purchased by another, its stock usually goes up, and Ramnarine was allegedly able to make a tidy $311,361 by playing the market armed with information the public didn't yet know.

According to the complaint, Ramnarine allegedly searched the Web at some point during the insider trading, evidently to figure out if he could get away with it.

The complaint states that "[u]sing his work computer, Ramnarine conducted a search on www.yahoo.com for 'can option be traced to purchaser.' He conducted similar searches for the following phrases: 'can stock option be traced to purchase inside trading' and 'how to detect can stock option be traced to purchase inside trading.'"

And... we'll just pause while thousands and thousands of people delete their search histories.

Dow Jones Newswires unsuccessfully attempted to reach, by phone, a Robert Ramnarine of East Brunswick, N.J. The news organization reports that Bristol-Myers put Ramnarine on administrative leave.